With the exception of my first employer in Belgium and like 1 or 2 others, I've only had bad interviews in Belgium. All exceptions were with internal hires driven by the knowledgeful people I worked with.
Let's start with the most basic. I'm not a native and therefore I only work in English. Until I picked up enough bad experience, I've been to 4 interviews only to find at the end that e.g. French is required though there is nothing in my cv. Most surprisingly, half of the times, I had to be the one to ask while the interview was in English. So much time and money wasted. And keep in mind that before the interview, I've spoken with a recruiter, who had looked at my CV, who approached as he found good and spoke with their client, who looked at my CV and accepted to have the interview and all this in English when I was involved.
All and all, recruiters and their hr counterparts are often very unprofessional but in Belgium it is a drama. I compare it with my few experiences with UK. The recruiter knew what he was talking about, had answers or provided ones later and at the company during the interview, there were knowledgeful people to discuss my assignment. I didn't get the job partly because of the recruiter misinforming me about their budget but it was so nice after so many years to have a good interview where my explanations were understood.
I understand that recruiters are sales. Let's not kid ourselves with fancy words of business development manager. If you work with commission and quotas you are sales because by definition your driver is not quality of work but volume and money. I have recruiter friends and I know it from inside how it works .But even like this, a professional recruiter needs to justify his entitlement for money that is derived from the candidate. There are agencies here who get a daily cut off minimum 50 and often 100 euro from the freelancers they position and during the discussion they cannot even figure out the working language. Rates are not connected to knowledge or productivity so organizations pay the same incredible amounts for assigned bad or good professionals, recruiters get the same cut. In such a landscape, recruitment had gone off rails and since it is so pervasive in the industry you can't go around it. It is very hard to justify your knowledge and competence in an environment that cannot evaluate it and actually doesn't care and often accepts very bad quality of work.
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
With the exception of my first employer in Belgium and like 1 or 2 others, I've only had bad interviews in Belgium. All exceptions were with internal hires driven by the knowledgeful people I worked with.
Let's start with the most basic. I'm not a native and therefore I only work in English. Until I picked up enough bad experience, I've been to 4 interviews only to find at the end that e.g. French is required though there is nothing in my cv. Most surprisingly, half of the times, I had to be the one to ask while the interview was in English. So much time and money wasted. And keep in mind that before the interview, I've spoken with a recruiter, who had looked at my CV, who approached as he found good and spoke with their client, who looked at my CV and accepted to have the interview and all this in English when I was involved.
All and all, recruiters and their hr counterparts are often very unprofessional but in Belgium it is a drama. I compare it with my few experiences with UK. The recruiter knew what he was talking about, had answers or provided ones later and at the company during the interview, there were knowledgeful people to discuss my assignment. I didn't get the job partly because of the recruiter misinforming me about their budget but it was so nice after so many years to have a good interview where my explanations were understood.
I understand that recruiters are sales. Let's not kid ourselves with fancy words of business development manager. If you work with commission and quotas you are sales because by definition your driver is not quality of work but volume and money. I have recruiter friends and I know it from inside how it works .But even like this, a professional recruiter needs to justify his entitlement for money that is derived from the candidate. There are agencies here who get a daily cut off minimum 50 and often 100 euro from the freelancers they position and during the discussion they cannot even figure out the working language. Rates are not connected to knowledge or productivity so organizations pay the same incredible amounts for assigned bad or good professionals, recruiters get the same cut. In such a landscape, recruitment had gone off rails and since it is so pervasive in the industry you can't go around it. It is very hard to justify your knowledge and competence in an environment that cannot evaluate it and actually doesn't care and often accepts very bad quality of work.